Recounts the author's experiences fleeing Iran as a young boy during the Iran-Iraq war, and making his way on his own in the unfamiliar city of Istanbul in hopes of attaining a visa in England.

When ten-year-old Abbas arrives in England to start a new life - having just fled conscription into the Iranian army and survived almost three months alone in Istanbul, Turkey, waiting for a visa - he does not know that his troubles have only just begun. Abbas's cousin packs him off to boarding school, and infrequent phone calls are his only contact with his beloved mother in Iran. Things get worse when Abbas is threatened with deportation and forced...